A Second Hand Conjecture

(photo: 2 Dogs)

Modern China has a curious capacity to make otherwise very sensible capitalists instantly forget every experience they’ve ever had with government central planning. The Western businessman on a trip to Shanghai looks up and sees all those gleaming skyscrapers going up on the Yangtze, and he thinks massive state planning must be different somehow in the People’s Republic. It isn’t.

Perhaps it’s scale that creates the perceptual distortion. Perhaps it’s purely an aesthetic disconnect. After all, contemporary Chinese construction projects don’t look like the hideous ferro-concrete Soviet public housing blocks of historical experience. The gaudy Chinese glass and steel skyscrapers look like nice American commercial office towers, uplifted from Houston or Los Angeles…even when many are in fact, public housing blocks. One thing is certain: the construction frenzy obscures most evidence of short-sighted error.

Some of that is changing however, and we can expect only more to come. News of the largest shopping mall in the world in Dongguan, which has few retailers and no customers, raised some eyebrows earlier this year. No one should have been surprised.

And now we can add another headshaker of a planning disaster on a monumental scale: a massive new shipping terminal in Shanghai…hastily built above an equally hastily built bridge, which cannot accommodate the large vessels the terminal is designed to serve in the future:

[A]nything larger than 87,000 gt will not get to the sparkling new terminal, thanks to the low bridge, and will have to berth at the scenic and relaxing roll on/roll off terminal in Waigaoqiao, which, in rush hour, can be close to an hour’s bus ride from the Hongkou terminal. At best, Waigaoqiao can handle four cruise ships at any one time. More than 100 international cruise ships are expected to stop by Shanghai this year. The terminal will be home to a plethora of luxury goods shops and several hotels have sprung up nearby if only there was no Yangpu bridge.
(AccessAsia via Far Eastern Economic Review)

The only option appears to be to tear down either the bridge or the terminal. Expect more along these lines in years to come. Even eventually about your own personal favorite awe-inspiring Chinese public works project.

Tags: aesthetic, American, bridge, capitalists, central planning, China, commercial, construction, cruise, disaster, Dongguan, Far Eastern Economic Review, government, Hongko, housing, Houston, international, largest, Los Angeles, planning, project, public works, republic, shipping, shopping mall, skyscapers, Soviet, terminal, urban planning, vessels, Waigaoqiao, Yangpu, yangtze

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